14 October 2015

A scarred fighter.A girl with rules.One night of unbridled passion.There are three things you need to know about Elizabeth Bennett: she’s smart as a whip, always in control, and lives by a set of carefully crafted rules. She’s learned the hard way that people you love the most always hurt you in the end.But then she meets Declan Blay, the new neighbor at her apartment complex.A tattooed British street fighter, he’s the campus bad boy she’s supposed to avoid, but when he saves her from a frat party gone bad, all her rules about sex and love fly out the window.She gives him one night of unbridled passion, but he longs for more.With only a cardboard-thin wall separating their bedrooms, he dreams of possessing the vulnerable girl next door forever.One night. Two damaged hearts. The passion of a lifetime.

♥ My Thoughts: Ilsa Madden-Mills is
already on top of my favorite author list since reading her Briarcrest Academy
Series. This one just made me love her a little more. She knows how to push
your buttons: make you swoon, make you laugh, make you ache and make you fall
in love one page at a time.

Especially when it starts with a
heartbreaking scene. My heart literally went out for Elizabeth and I wanted to
wring someone else’s neck at the beginning of the story. No girls should ever
feel that way, despite what others may say, or others may think.

Elizabeth is a strong, stubborn, and
beautiful. She had built strong walls around her, and didn’t let anyone came
near her heart. She has rules about dating, sex and the like: until Declan came
along.

I can hear him in my mind
#SwoonOvertheAccent.

"I'm the guy who's going to take you up against this wall. I'm going to bury my cock in you and own your body and you're going to love it. But I'm not going to hurt you. Ever."

Declan is your typical Alpha-Male, but
he can be sweet and attentive when he wants to be. He’s a Lit Major and reads
book! Definitely someone to add on your book boyfriend list! He’s a street
fighter, but he has dreams to build his own gym in the future without asking
anything from anyone, most especially his father. The death of someone close to
him had him broken at an early age, and unlike his twin brother (oh yes, there
are two of them), he seemed to be the more serious type.

The two of them meeting was just pretty
epic and funny. I never expected that. I think I just went red on embarrassment
for Elizabeth. Good thing, Declan already noticed her prior, and he just wouldn’t
settle to be her next one-night stand.

Declan made her want to break all her
rules. Can he be the one to destroy the walls around her heart?

Loving Declan was like the rain storms I loved to dance in. Crazy and unpredictable, sometimes turbulent, sometimes gentle. I didn't know if I was going to be struck by lightning, but one thing was for sure, I wanted him anyway.

This one is sweet, steamy and fun. I can’t
help but stayed glued to every page. I finished this in one sitting. The end
was perfect, with (almost) everything falling into place, I couldn’t ask for
anything more except… I was wondering if Declan’s twin got a book of his own
too?

“I— I have a mountain to climb in life, and I want you next to me. I want you to walk up it with me— behind me to give me a push or next to me when I need to hold your hand. And when there’s a jungle there, I want you to fight with me. We’ll have machetes, and it will be tough some days when I try to figure out who I am and what I need, but with you next to me, it’ll be okay. I want you to carry me when I’m tired, and I’ll carry you when you’re tired. I want you to rub my fingers when I’ve worked a hard day making pretty things, and I’ll rub your muscles when they get hurt. I want to be the blanket that covers you when you are cold. Or vice versa. I want all of it— all the blood, sweat, and tears— no matter what dream you decide to follow. I’m here. Forever. I love you.”

“Come to my apartment and spend the night with me.” I touched his face, my fingers stroking the softness of his sensuous lips. “Just one night and we can make this shitty world disappear.”

He exhaled. “A one-night stand?”

“Yeah.”

He cupped my chin. “Someone hurt you, didn’t they?”

My lips tightened. No one at Whitman knew about Colby except for Shelley and Blake, and I sure as hell wasn’t telling him. He’d judge me like everyone else had in Petal, North Carolina. “That’s none of your business.”

“I see.” His eyes searched mine until I felt like a bug under a microscope. “What if I wanted more than just one night?”

“Then your hands can let go of my hips now.”

He removed his hands slowly, the tips of his fingers grazing mine. “This may surprise you, but I don’t sleep with every girl I kiss.”

I’d been rejected. Again. “Blake said you got around, that you used—”

“And you believed him?” His voice was incredulous. “Dude is in love with you and he saw exactly how we looked at each other tonight—”

“Looked at each other? What are you talking about? You refused to dance with me and then you ran off with your girlfriend. Not to mention I just kissed you and you didn’t even care.” I threw my hands up.

“I wanted to fuck you the minute you walked in that party,” he snapped.

“Then why don’t you,” I bit out, tossing back my shoulders.

“You think you want me?” he said tightly. “You can’t handle me, Elizabeth. I can see it in your eyes. You’re scared of something, maybe not me, but something.”

My eyes went to his black eye.

He let out a harsh laugh. “Ah, that’s what you’re afraid of. You want the real truth? You told me tonight you didn’t like violence, but I’m an arsehole who uses his fists. That’s who I am.”

“What do you mean?”

His gaze was intense, dark and low, his face struggling as he fought to find the right words. “I’m in a fight club for money. I show up at warehouses and fight other blokes. Sometimes I beat them so bad they need medical attention. A few times, I’ve been beat to unconsciousness. I’m everything you need to stay away from.”

I inhaled, anger and lust and excitement all riding me. Anger that he was pushing me away, lust for the alpha male in him, and God help me, the fighting thing repelled me and excited me at the same time. “I don’t want to stay away from you. I want you to fuck me and stop making excuses for why you can’t.”

My words seemed to snap his taut restraint.

He pulled me back in his arms, his lips fusing with mine unerringly. His tongue plundered me in a sensual way my body had craved for years. I wrapped my arms around his neck, my anger morphing into all-out desire as he turned us and pressed me against the wall.

Yes, yes, this is what I craved.

A passion to remind me that I was real, not just some sad excuse of a girl who chose to exist on scraps of love.

Before I knew it, he’d shoved my robe off, his hands sculpting my shoulders, massaging them as he ravaged my mouth. I reveled in the warmth of his hand on my neck as his mouth skated down, kissing the hollows of my throat, sucking on my collarbone.

“Like this?” he asked, his voice dark and gravelly. “You want me to take you up against this wall?”

“Yes,” I moaned. Gone. Past caring as long as he kept his hands on me.

Out of control, my brain whispered, but I beat back the dark warnings as his warm hand found my breast and squeezed, his fingers rolling my nipple between his thumb and forefinger.

I gasped in pleasure and arched my back to get closer to his body, ignoring the fear that pricked at the surface.

The rules girl in my head stamped her foot and yelled at me. I ignored her.

But even if I wanted to stop right now, I couldn’t. My tongue tangled wildly with his, my hands pulled at his hair, spurring him on, his hand palming my breast and then tugging. Sharp sensations of need went straight to my core.

“Is this what you want? Something quick where we just take what we want and forget each other the next day?”

No. Not that. Not like the way he said it, like it was something dirty.

“Yes, like that,” I whispered against his shoulder, my mouth on his skin, tasting him as my teeth bit down.

New York Times and USA Today best-selling author Ilsa Madden-Mills writes about strong heroines and sexy alpha males that sometimes you just want to slap.

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